Comments on: A 2005 Goal: Open source code for a variety of modules

This is the first in a series of blogs about the development and
marketing goals for REBOL in the coming year.

During 2005 we plan to make the C source code to a variety of REBOL
subsystems available to developers. These modules include console
handling code, windowing, graphics, fonts, event handling, time/timing,
file interfaces, networking, and probably more.

This is the next logical step in our experiments with open source. As you
may recall, apart from the open source nature of the REBOL code we
publish within the SDK, the DRAW/AGG C++ source project is our first
collaborative source project with other developers (Cyphre/Maxim). We
think it has worked out well and we plan to release a beta version
quite soon.

Here at RT we want our primary focus to be on improving the REBOL
language itself - adding features and making fixes. Whenever
possible we would prefer not to spend our time working on
the text console, fixing strange bugs in X Windows, debugging fonts in
Mandrake Linux, or diving into the details of porting REBOL to
other operating systems (OS X and Win CE immediately come to mind but
perhaps you can think of others). Don't get us wrong. We want to see
all these projects happen, we just don't have the resources to do
all of them at the same time.

From the legal side, we will be creating a special source code license
that allows developers to make changes and contribute them back to the
archive. The primary restriction of the license is that the source code
modules remain owned by RT.

From the operations side, we will create a REBOL/Service for downloading
code modules, uploading suggested changes, approving changes,
documenting changes, etc. As improvements, fixes, and ports are made,
we will generate new builds for testing and release.

So, onward with the next experiment. Personally, it's going to be very
interesting to watch how this open source method turns out. There has
been a lot of the "what if" talk over the years, so this is the next
step. Will developers make improvements or bring REBOL to new OS
platforms? Only time will tell.